1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to medical imaging systems and particularly to cardiac imaging systems. The embodiments herein more particularly relate to an echocardiography system and to a cardiac modeling system and method for modeling left ventricle of heart. The embodiments herein disclose a method and system for physical and mathematical modeling of the left ventricle in an echocardiography system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in many countries. The mortality rate is decreased over the years as lifestyle has changed, but the reduction in mortality rate is also due to the development of new technologies to diagnose disease. One of these techniques is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which provides time-varying three-dimensional image of the heart. Generally, the physicians examines the heart chambers, the endocardium and epicardium to measure changes in ventricular blood volume and wall thickening properties over a cardiac cycle to diagnose variation in cardiovascular functionalities. The left ventricle is of particular interest, since it pumps oxygenated blood out to distant tissue in the entire body.
The left ventricle is one of the chambers of the heart having a main role in the cardiac function. The left ventricle, being a muscular body, eases the realization of its function and dysfunction using cardiac imaging systems. The most common imaging tests used in cardiac medicine includes echocardiography/ultrasound of the heart, nuclear perfusion imaging, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and cardiac computer tomography. An echocardiogram employs ultrasound to examine the functionality of the heart. In addition to a function of providing single-dimension images, known as M-mode echo, the system allows accurate measurement of the heart chambers. The two-dimensional (2-D) Echo is another imaging test for displaying a cross sectional cut of the beating heart, including the chambers, valves and blood vessels that exit from the left ventricle and the right ventricle.
The M-mode and 2-D Echo evaluate the size, thickness and movement of heart structures whereas Doppler assesses direction and velocity of the blood flow using ultrasound. Echocardiography provides information about the size of the chambers, pumping function, valve function whereas the tissue Doppler, myocardial velocity and displacement, strain and strain rate echocardiography provide a measure of the wall motion. Ultra sonograms are generally used as the imaging method, as they are widely available, inexpensive and non-invasive. However, ultrasonographic pictures are unclear, blurred and noisy thereby making the pictures difficult for an automatic analysis.
Hence there is a need for modeling of the left ventricle to study the normal and abnormal conditions of the left ventricle. Also there exists a need for modeling of the myocardium for evaluating the myocardial motions and velocities to characterize the regional contribution within the myocardium to the global function of the heart.
The abovementioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein and which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.